The Counterculture Christ Part 3 - Scott Mayo

Good morning, Bridge Church.

You guys are looking great.

I don't know if anybody's told you that today, but I'm telling you that.

You guys look great.

For those that do not know me, my name is Scott.

I serve as the executive pastor here at Bridge Church.

Our lead pastors, Pastors Archie and Tangie, are away today, but they will be back next week.

And so today we're going to continue our series called The Counterculture Christ.

The Counterculture Christ.

We have...

Been in this series for about two weeks now, and so we have been talking about the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus taught, and so we've been in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We're going to be moving into Matthew 6 today, but it's the idea of the Sermon on the Mount.

Many theologians and Bible scholars have called this the Constitution of the Kingdom, the Constitution of the Kingdom of God.

In other words, it's this idea that the Constitution begins to declare or break down or describe God's kingdom on the earth and what it looks like, and really the

what it looks like for you and I as Christians or as heavenly citizens, how we are to act and conduct ourselves.

And so we're going to be talking about this idea today called the audience of one, the audience of one.

So we're going to be talking about that today.

Back in 1984, for some of y'all, y'all might remember that for some of y'all, y'all didn't even know 1984 existed.

But back in 1984, Motown Records label signed a guy named Rockwell.

And Rockwell did not have a lot of famous hits or anything like that.

He had a couple.

And so in 1984, they released a song by Rockwell.

And many people believe the reason the song was popular is not because it just had a catchy tune, which it did,

But Rockwell got a background vocal singer who was very popular at the time to come and record and be the background vocalist.

In fact, many people, when they heard the song, thought it was the background vocalist's actual song.

And so they didn't realize that it was actually someone else.

But the point is this, is that the song was called Somebody Watching Me.

Okay?

Now, if you know anything about it, the course went like this.

I always feel like if somebody's watching me, I have no privacy.

The background vocalist on there was none other than Michael Jackson.

And so Michael Jackson was singing the background vocals, but it was a song about kind of being paranoid that people were watching us, that people were looking, and we didn't want to be watched.

But how do many of you know that over the time and throughout the decades later, we now love to be watched, right?

We have cameras on our phones and we can take videos and we can go live anytime.

We can just be right there on social media and we're going to go live and we can be just telling people that we're standing outside the door with a thousand other people waiting to get the latest iPhone or something like that.

We can tell people, hey, look what I'm having for breakfast.

All of these things that we can do now through technology.

We have streamers, streaming platforms.

We have influencers.

We have all sorts of things out there to help people now look at us.

It's something about this generation.

And this culture that we're in now is that we're very much want to be seen and want to be heard.

And we feel like we have something to express or something that we need to share.

And it's not that we're looking maybe for to be popular or famous, although I don't know too many teenagers at some point did not think that they would maybe try to figure out a way to skip high school and college and figure out how to be an influencer and make millions.

just by opening up a box of tennis shoes and being, you know, just look at what I got and just being able to make millions off that.

So all of us have had a desire to be seen, right?

This is not something that is new.

When we were younger, many were younger, they would call them the class clowns.

They would be someone who would act out to try to get attention.

There would be attention-seeking behavior is what we would call it.

In fact, many people trips to the ER, the words before that were, hey, watch this.

And so we've always had this desire in some way to be noticed, to be looked at.

And I really think that's original in the Garden of Eden with Satan, right?

He was thrown out of heaven because his desire were to people to focus on him and not God.

And so...

This is not something new.

But the question is not whether we should post pictures of our cat chasing its tail because we figured out a way to attach a laser pointer to it or anything like that.

That's not the issue that we're talking about.

But really the issue is this, is what motivates us?

Why do we do what we do?

Have you ever thought about that?

Why do I work so hard?

Why do I try to achieve?

What is driving me?

Is it because I want to prove myself to someone who maybe said, you'll never make it?

Why is it that I find myself flirting all the time with people of the opposite sex?

Why is that?

Is it because I'm longing for love that I've never experienced before?

Or maybe let's kind of bring it into our context today.

Why do we come to church?

Is it because we think the kids need church and we just kind of do it just to kind of be the school bus and drop them off?

The kids really need that foundational stuff, but I'm not really that much into church.

Maybe that's it.

Why do we give?

Why do we give of our time?

Why do we give of our finances?

Is it because we think somehow that...

Gives us some kind of score with God that somehow he marks off a little checklist and somehow we're going to get into heaven because of these good little things that we do.

All of these things become motives of why we do and give and why we do what we do.

Why do we give Christmas gifts to people that we don't even know how to spell their name?

Right?

Is it with a Y or with a high E?

We don't know and we feel like we're still obligated to give.

Why do we do what we do?

And here's the thing.

I believe that if we don't take the time to examine our motives as Christians, as Christ followers, that sometimes unintentionally and tragically we will do the right things for the wrong reasons.

We will do the right things for the wrong reasons.

And that is where the counterculture Christ of our series comes into play.

Because what happens is the counterculture Christ is this.

God rewards what is done for him alone, not for the audience.

God rewards what is done for him alone and not the audience.

So if you have your Bibles today, we're gonna look at Matthew chapter six.

In our text, in our framework here, is really verses one through 18.

Verses one through 18.

But we're not gonna read all of those verses today, so I've tried to just break it down into four verses for us that I believe kinda gets the context of where we need to go.

Again, this is Jesus speaking, Sermon on the Mount.

And he says this, starting with verse one.

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen.

Say, to be seen.

By them.

If you do, you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do.

Notice that word hypocrites, it'll come up later.

Do in the synagogues and in the streets to be honored by others.

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Now jump down to verse 5.

And then verse 16.

Verse 16.

And when you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting.

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

So the last couple of weeks we've been in Matthew chapter 5 on the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And in the Matthew chapter 5, it begins with the Beatitudes.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Blessed are those or happy are those.

And Jesus lists the Beatitudes for us.

But then he begins to talk about our relationship with each other.

How do we deal and interact with fellow men?

And so our brethren, people who have been made in the image of God.

Believe it or not, whether you like somebody or not, they are still made in the image of God.

Right?

And so Jesus walks us through that.

And he begins to deal with this idea or thought here.

Of the attitude of the heart versus the action of the hand.

The attitude of the heart versus the action of the hand.

In other words, he'll say things like, you have heard it said, thou shall not commit murder.

That is action of the hand.

But then he goes on to say, but I say to you, if you have hate in your heart, then you have committed murder.

That's the attitude of the heart.

He does the same thing with adultery.

So he's dealing with the action of the hand and the attitude of the heart.

So now we move into...

Matthew chapter six and we begin to see Jesus begins to teach how we are to interact now with God or how we please God or how God sees us.

And so we move away from how do we interact with each other on earth to how we interact with God.

And so Jesus is kind of bringing about a contrast between two groups of people.

He brings about a contrast between a disciple of Christ and a hypocrite.

A disciple of Christ or a hypocrite.

In other words, if we are going to be a true disciple of Christ, Jesus is saying this is how we act.

This is how we live.

This is how we respond.

This is how we handle and do what we are to do in the kingdom of God.

And so Jesus uses this contrary word to disciple of Christ, this word hypocrite.

And hypocrite is this idea, maybe you've heard about this before, but it's a Greek term that comes from the Greek theater, which just means to simply act or pretend or to be part of a play, right?

And so in the Greek theater, they would wear masks

so that they would portray a character that they were playing.

And so a person could come along and go behind stage and put on a different mask to play a second part in the play.

So they may not have enough characters, so they would simply switch out masks.

They could just move back and forth.

But Jesus is using this word to say, hey, listen, in my kingdom, you are not gonna wear a mask.

You are not going to pretend like you are a disciple of mine.

You are going to be a disciple of mine.

You are going to be in a place where you are not performing for people.

You cannot work your way into my kingdom.

You cannot perform your way into my kingdom.

You have to be a Christ follower.

You have to be a disciple of mine to be in my kingdom."

You have to live differently.

And so the apostle Paul comes along in Ephesians chapter two, verse eight and nine.

And he says, by grace, through faith that you and I have been saved, not that we have accomplished it by works.

In other words, I cannot work my way into heaven.

You cannot work your way into heaven.

Your good works, my good works will not earn us a place in heaven.

And so Isaiah comes along, the prophet, he comes along and he says, hey, the righteousness of the nation of Israel and the righteousness of the Gentiles, the righteousness is our self-righteousness is as filthy rags, right?

They are soiled, rotten, stinky, no good rags that are good for nothing except to be discarded, right?

That is on our best day, right?

Go on, when you really think you have a good day without Christ, your righteousness is just as filthy rags.

It stinks just as much as the person who's sitting in jail.

They committed all sorts of murders and everything else.

God sees that righteousness, that self-righteousness as rotten.

as rotten flesh.

And from the beginning of time, Adam and Eve, like when they fell into sin and they got into sin, what did they do?

They sewed fig leaves together to try to hide, right?

And that's what man has been doing all along is trying to deal with his sin all along by hiding it, by our self-righteousness, by being able to stand before God in our own righteousness, hoping that he will accept us that way.

And Jesus says, no, that's not the case.

You will be a true disciple.

And so Jesus comes along and says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except by or through me.

So the only way I've been declared righteous is because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

His death, burial, and resurrection.

And that is how I receive the righteousness of Christ.

God comes and justifies me.

He declares me not a sinner, even though I am.

But by faith...

I have received this righteousness because of the work of Jesus Christ.

I have repented, I am a Christ follower, and that is how I receive the free gift of salvation in my life.

And so Jesus comes along and says, there's going to be something different.

And so this idea of hypocrisy

It's something that Jesus kind of deals with all throughout his time on earth here, his earthly ministry.

He's dealing with this idea of hypocrisy.

In fact, I want to read a passage of scripture that comes out in Matthew 23, 27 through 28.

And Jesus, again, is now this time he's dealing with teachers.

He's dealing with Pharisees, people who handle the law.

He says, woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Verse 28, in the same way on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

In other words, Jesus saying, hey, you are playing the part.

You look good.

You've got the scripture memorized.

You come with your Torah under your hand.

You come and you look really well in front of the people, but really you're full of dead men's bones.

You're a hypocrite.

It's hypocrisy.

In fact, Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he talks about righteousness, he says this in 633.

He says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness first.

Come on, not my righteousness, not my effort, not my performance, not the part that I'm trying to play like I've got it all together.

Come on, the greatest thing, we would have revival if people just really just said, hey, you know what?

I don't have it all together.

Right?

And so Jesus says, hey, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

So this self-righteousness or this hypocrisy that Jesus is dealing with is this idea of look what I have done.

Look what I have done.

But when we talk about God's righteousness, it's this idea of look what Christ has done for me.

So you and I have to understand that there is nothing that I can do, my church attendance, my offerings, my good works, shoveling my neighbor's driveway or when it snows or raking their leaves or doing something nice like that, as great as those things are, they do not earn me a place in heaven.

They're good works, but they don't gain me righteousness.

I don't get righteousness because of these things.

And so Jesus is creating a dichotomy or a difference between what a true Christ follower or disciple is and what a hypocrite is.

And so Jesus gives us this warning in verse 1 of our text.

And so it's not just a suggestion, right?

Jesus is not the God of suggestions.

He's just like, hey, you might want to consider, you might think about.

No, Jesus is like this, be careful.

I like what one translation says.

It says, take heed.

It is a strong imperative.

It is like, this is what you need to do if you're going to be a Christ follower.

Take heed not to practice your righteousness in front of others, to be seen by them.

If you do, you will have no reward from your father whatsoever.

In heaven.

See, Jesus is not having a problem.

And you got to wrestle with the tension of the scripture.

Jesus is not having a problem that people were doing things where other people saw them doing good works.

That wasn't the issue.

It wasn't that somebody saw, oh, that person gave, they must be bad.

No, it was the idea of the motive of the heart.

It goes back to the motive of the heart.

It was not that they were being generous.

It was the fact that they needed to be seen as being generous.

And so he deals with this motive of the heart.

And then he comes along and is dealing with that.

But you've got to understand, in Matthew chapter 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, in the earlier part, you've got to go, well, is Jesus confused here?

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Because in Matthew 5, 16, he's saying, let your good works shine before men.

That they might see him and glorify your father in heaven.

But now in Matthew chapter 6 verse 1, he's telling us, hey, don't do your good works in front of people where people can see them.

Matthew 6:1

What is the difference?

The difference is, is the motive of the heart.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus is saying, hey...

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

your good work should bring glory to God.

It should point to Jesus.

It should point to God.

What you are doing should bring men to see that God is good and he's gracious.

But in Matthew chapter six, he's saying, hey, there's a difference in what is the danger being is that you and I begin to take the glory for ourselves.

God will never let us compete with his glory.

And he's saying, hey, listen, so when I do good works, who's getting the glory?

Who am I trying to impress?

Who am I trying to bring the attention to?

I'm trying to get the glory for myself, and God will never let us compete for this glory.

And you feel like, hey, why am I being resisted?

The Bible says that God resists the proud.

So there's a resistance.

Why am I not getting a hit?

Why am I not getting noticed?

Why am I not, all of these things that take place.

God is saying, hey, I would resist you because your heart is wrong.

Your motives are wrong.

And so God says, hey, there's these three examples that he gives us.

He gives us the example of giving, gives us the example of prayer, and he gives us the example of fasting.

These were staples within the Jewish community of things that Jewish community were to do.

They were to give charity, and they were to pray, and they were to fast.

Likewise, in our Christian community, we have what we call disciplines of the faith.

Disciplines of the faith, there are kind of two categories for disciplines of the faith.

Let me just give you, kind of break it down just real quick.

for you and we'll keep moving.

But the disciplines of the faith, there's the disciplines of abstinence.

Those are things that we stay away from for a season or a time so that we can connect with God.

So there might be a solitude, might be a discipline of abstinence.

This is not loneliness.

This is not isolation.

This is where I go away maybe for a couple of hours, maybe a day, whenever I can do that.

And I just get alone with God.

Like I want to know God, I want to discover God, I want to be with God.

There's things like chastity.

We don't talk about that much.

But chastity is this idea of sexual purity before marriage.

That I'll abstain.

Even in times, Paul talks about that even when you're married, there might be times that you abstain from sexual relationships because of chastity.

the pursuit of God.

We're pursuing God.

So there's sacrifice, there's fasting, there's doing away with food for a certain amount of time.

So these are things that we separate from so that we can experience God's power, love at a greater dimension.

We can become more Christ-like.

We allow the life of Christ to be transformed in us.

But then there's a second category of disciplines of the faith,

And it's the thing called the disciplines of engagement.

So these are things that we do, we don't do away with, but we do so that we encounter Christ at a deeper dimension.

These are things like worshiping together.

These are things like giving.

These are things like celebration and worship.

and expression of praise.

These are things like Bible study and prayer, reading God's word.

So these are things that we engage in.

And so the reason I take the time to tell you this, all these things, is because I want you to know that these are things that we do to engage and to be transformed and help us to grow in our fellowship and relationship with Christ, but they are not righteousness.

Right?

So by doing a whole, I know people that know the Bible more than I do.

They can quote just about the whole thing, but they're so far from God because they're just locked up in their own little world.

And they think that knowing all of these things, that doing all of these things, fast two and three times a week, whatever it is, but that doesn't earn you righteousness.

It is Jesus.

It is Jesus, the finished work, finished work.

It's not some other work.

It's not Jesus Plus.

Okay, I know you got a whole bunch of apps out there called Plus, like Hulu Plus, ESPN Plus, Apple Plus.

It's not Jesus Plus.

It's just Jesus.

There's no addition that is needed with Jesus.

So I'm not trying to earn my way into heaven.

I'm not trying to earn God's grace or his favor.

The Bible says that while, again, I was a sinner, that he died for me.

He died for you.

It's already been taken care of.

And so Jesus gives us these three applications, these places that he points out.

The first thought is this, is to give without the announcement.

Give without the announcement.

Let's go back to

Verse two of our text.

He says, so when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others.

Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

I want to just pause for just a second because at the end of each one of these verses that I kind of read, it always ended with they have received their reward in full.

In full.

When Jesus is talking and you begin to study this out, this reward is more like a reimbursement.

Is that when somebody comes along and they did something that, look at me, look how great I am, look how showy I am, all of these things, it was more like they received their reward as a reimbursement.

Now, how many of you know a reimbursement, you didn't lose any money, but you didn't gain any money, right?

If you go on a business trip and you turn in a receipt for 54 bucks for gas, which probably got you a quarter of a tank, but if you go and it's 54 bucks and I got to return it, how many of you know I lost $54?

It went negative in my bank account.

Now I got reimbursed.

Now I'm back to the same spot that I was.

That was the reward, that they just got that 15 minutes of notice, that 15 minutes of fame, as we would call it.

But Jesus is saying, hey, my heavenly Father knows how to give rewards, and the rewards that he gives are not just here on earthly, but they are also eternal rewards.

So there's this earthly blessing that you and I get that when we do things for God, that he just blesses us.

I don't know how to explain it, but when you do something and you give and you give without the expectation and you just say, I feel like God's leading me to bless that person or do this or do that.

God supernaturally, somehow he just makes your cars last longer or your shoes last longer or whatever it happens to be.

Things that you don't even understand and you're being blessed and you don't even know you're being blessed.

It's like this undercurrent and you just don't know why.

But God has supernaturally blessing us because we are seeking him with the right heart and the right motives.

And so he says, hey, I want you to give.

And the interesting thing is that, again, he's not concerned about them being generous.

So let me tell you, when we do the offering and receive the offering, giving is part of a disciple's discipline.

So if everybody's like, I don't know about that giving.

It's in the scripture.

It's right there.

But here's the thing.

When we do our acts of kindness or do our acts of disciplines, whether that's whatever it happens to be, fasting, praying, and giving, and worshiping, whatever it happens to be, it breaks the transaction loop off of our life.

The transaction loop.

You say, what is that?

The transaction loop is like this.

I do something good.

People see it.

People praise me.

I feel righteous.

And we get into that loop.

And so now I live out of this false self, right?

I do good.

People see it.

People praise me.

I feel righteous.

I feel good.

I feel noble.

I feel great in who I am.

But it breaks that because the kingdom loop is this.

I do good.

God sees it.

And that's enough.

That's enough.

I don't have to do anything else.

Whether I see a earthly blessing or not does not mean that somehow God owes me.

God doesn't owe us anything.

We owe it all to God.

We owe it all to God.

So it breaks that transactional loop.

off my life of always, you know how that loop works, right?

You remember, you probably had kids or grandkids or saw kids or whatever growing up and they would do something kind of like a little off the wall and everybody would laugh and then what would the parent or teacher say?

They would say, don't encourage them.

Don't encourage them, you know what I'm saying?

So don't encourage them.

We're just gonna sit there and we're gonna be kingdom people that do good and

God sees it and that's enough because we're talking about the audience of one.

The audience of one.

I live my life for one person.

to please God.

Out of that, out of living my life to please God, I live a life that honors my wife.

I live a life that tries to honor my kids.

I live a life that tries to honor where I serve and where I work.

I try to live a life where I honor people in public, at the store or wherever.

When they cut me off, I let them on over.

They didn't cut me off.

I chose to let them in.

That's how I look at it.

I just like, you know what?

I gave you three inches to get in there.

That was enough.

It was enough, right?

So it's, it's, it's, it's this idea of that.

We break that transactional loop off our life, loop off our life.

The second thing he talks about is pray without performance, prayer, pray without performance.

Let's go to verse six.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your heavenly father or to your father who is unseen.

Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.

Verse eight, do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him.

Prayer is a beautiful place of fellowship.

Look, you don't have to have all the right language to pray.

I've been in places, and I understand what people are saying and what they mean, and I ask them, hey, would you mind praying?

They say, well, I'm not very good at it.

Prayer, you don't have to be very good at.

You just pray because you're talking to your heavenly Father.

That's right.

You're talking to the creator of the universe, the one who knows everything.

And the Bible says he knows all the needs before you even ask it.

So you may not even know how to get the need out.

You may not know how to describe it.

You may not know how to tell God what you're experiencing, the emotions inside of you, the anxiety thoughts or the frustration with maybe the family or at work or whatever it happens to be.

You may not be able to explain that to God, but you can tell him.

You can tell him, you can share with him what it is you're experiencing.

In fact, prayer should be one of the most vulnerable places that you can ever be real.

Think about it.

You get into this place and God knows everything about you.

You don't have to try to act.

You don't have to try to show off.

You don't have to try to have a performance.

I value my prayer time because it's the place that I can go, God, I don't know.

See, at work, a lot of times, you always have to have some kind of answer, right?

It's like, well, I don't know, but we'll figure it out, right?

But in my prayer time, it's this place of, God, I need your help.

God, I recognize that I'm just a human.

I'm just a man that's been saved but still broken in many areas.

I'm still trying to grow.

I'm still trying to be like you.

I still fail at times.

Let me tell you, my motives have been wrong at times.

And guess what?

So have yours.

We miss it.

We miss it at times.

But we don't have to put up a false front of not having it all together.

And so Jesus is saying, when you pray, you don't have to come with all these spiritual words and babblings and all of this kind of stuff.

Prayer should be this place where I have this unity and complete vulnerability with God.

This complete place where God can speak to me and I can speak with him.

So he says, don't come with a performance.

It's not a platform to show off or to show up or to show out.

It's a place where God knows everything about you anyway.

He already knows what's on the inside of you.

He knows your potential.

He knows your destiny.

He knows all of those things about you and I. And so he says, don't come with that performance mindset.

And then the third and final thing Jesus talks about is fasting.

And so it's this idea of fast without a filter.

Fast without a filter.

Anybody remember, it was really popular.

I don't know if people still do it anymore.

But everybody would send you pictures with a filter on it where they had like, they may have been at a party, but they had a filter that looked like a little birthday hat on or put glasses on or made you look like a monkey or made you look like a clown or one of these kind of filters that you put on your iPhone and you would send it.

And then we got filters like Photoshop.

Photoshop.

Then we got to run our pictures through before we post them on social media.

Got to get a little tan, take a few inches off.

All of these things that we do to have the filter to make sure it looks right.

Come on, you know what I'm talking about because I guarantee you right here, if you were in a group picture with 19 other people and they took the picture and said, hey, we're getting ready to post it, the first person you would look for is who?

Jesus.

yourself, right?

Everybody else could have hair going the wrong way, cross eyed and had their tongue hanging out and look like a complete goofball.

But if it's a good picture of you, you're like, yeah, that's the one.

Let's post that one.

I like that one.

Let's do it.

Go ahead.

Upload it right now.

Right?

Just put it up there.

Why?

Because it looks good of us because we're very much into image management.

Right?

We're in this thing of image management.

And Jesus is saying, hey, when you're fasting, don't get into this image management.

Walking around all somber and looking all sad and looking like, oh, well, he must be really going through it.

Right?

No, he's saying, hey, don't let people know what you're doing.

The secrecy of what's taking place in your life.

He's saying, don't do that.

Just get into this place where you and I are alone.

And that you can know me, and I can know you.

And that you understand that your works will not save you.

They're not gonna redeem you.

And so Jesus is saying, he really comes back, I think, to chapter five, where he says, the Beatitudes, he says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

Blessed are those that don't have like a pure image out here that has been fixed up and tucked up and photoshopped up and everything else.

No, not that, but it's the pure in heart.

In fact, if you go back to, I think the first beatitude, it says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

It's this place of,

Being spiritual bankrupt.

Spiritual bankrupt.

That I know that I don't have anything.

I recognize that I'm in poverty and I'm poor.

Not physically, but spiritually.

Because he says, blessed are those who are broken like that because they will reach out to God.

They're not trying to tuck it up, fix it up, and show it up and all of these other things.

But they have a pure heart.

and they will see God.

And so my question to us today is this, who's your audience?

Who's the audience that you're performing for?

What areas of your life are you performing in?

That maybe you're not being genuine before the Lord, before others.

Because you can be doing the right things for the wrong reasons.

And I like what Psalms says, this is Psalm of David of 139.

This is the New Living Translation.

And as I was thinking about the closing, I was thinking of two verses.

One out of Psalms 139 and it says this, search me.

That right there should stop you in your tracks.

Don't say that unless you mean it.

Search me, oh God.

And know my heart.

Know my heart.

Come on, when's the last time that you've asked the Holy Spirit to come and search you and to know your heart?

And he says, test me and know my anxious thoughts.

And I like what verse 24 says, point out anything in me that offends you.

God, by your spirit, come and begin to reveal in me anything that offends you.

And then the writer of Hebrews chapter four says this.

For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

It penetrates even the dividing of the soul and the spirit, joints and the marrow.

And then I want you to notice, it judges people.

the thoughts and attitudes of my heart.

David said, oh God, know my heart.

The Hebrew writer says, judge the attitudes of my heart.

The word comes and judges the attitude of my heart.

So it's this combination of the spirit of God along with the word of God that begins to grow us up, that begins to mature us out of a place where we might be walking in hypocrisy.

Who is your audience today?

Because God will reward what is done for him alone and not the audience.

Will you stand with me today?

I just want you to do this.

If you feel comfortable doing this, I want you to just lift your hands with palms up and we're gonna just take a moment to reflect and we're gonna ask the Holy Spirit

to come and search our hearts.

Father, right now, with a genuine heart, we come before you and we ask that you search us.

Lord, we all have places in our life that we're trying to grow in.

We're trying to become more like you.

We pray and we invite you in to transform us, to know our heart, to point out anything that is displeasing to you.

And as the writer said in the Hebrews, to judge that your word would judge the thoughts and the attitudes.

of our heart.

So God, right before you, right here, right now, we just begin to say, Holy Spirit, come, show us.

Let your spotlight, the illumination of your word, the illumination of the Spirit of God, bring about revelation to show us places that we are dealing with a performance.

a performance mindset that we're trying to gain the attention or the approval of others, and you've asked us not to do that because you are the audience of one that we are living for.

So, Father, come in right now and begin to deal with us.

Deal with the secret places.

Lord, we can be vulnerable with you because, Lord, we know that you have a love that is not a fake love.

It's not a transactional love.

It's not a love that we have to be perfect.

Lord, it's an agape love.

It's a love.

It's not a conditional love.

It's an unconditional love for us so we can truly be vulnerable before you because your love for us is great.

So God, I thank you for coming.

Lord, I just pray that the seed of your word would be planted in our hearts and that it would grow.

And Lord, I pray that you would bring it to our remembrances.

Lord, at the right moment, at that right time, that you would speak it to us, Lord, once again.

Lord, to check our motives, to check our heart, check the attitudes of our heart, that we might please you, that we might be a different counterculture because of Christ.